Pros

Cons

Phone support could use some improvement.
Managed WordPress hosts just six domains.

Bottom Line

If you're looking to build a website, look no further than Arvixe, a budget-friendly, feature-packed Web host.

Feb. 15, 2018Jeffrey L. Wilson

Former champion web hosting service Arvixe has had a tumultous history since we started reviewing it in 2014. Once a top choice overall, the service was then dogged by serious uptime problems and customer service woes before returning to excellence and even capturing our Editors' Choice for dedicated hosting last year—an award it has since ceded to Hostwinds. Lingering customer service issues, as well as newly observed page-loading problems, prevent it from joining DreamHost, HostGator, and Hostwinds as overall top choices among web hosting services, despite offering specs that sound impressive on paper.

Shared Web Hosting

Arvixe's shared web hosting plans give you the option of hosting your website on a Linux- or Windows-based server, so you have plenty of flexibility for laying your site's foundation. Like HostGator, the Editors' Choice for shared web hosting services, Arvixe offers a standard monthly web hosting charge, but it kicks savings your way if you commit to a multimonth or annual package.

The Linux-based PersonalClass shared web plan (starting at $7) includes a free domain name you can keep as long as you use Arvixe, a free domain transfer, unlimited monthly data transfers, unlimited storage, unlimited email, and the ability to host six domains. If you opt for PersonalClass Pro (starting at $10 per month), you can host as many domains as you like. The Windows-based PersonalClass ASP and PersonalClass ASP Pro start at $4 per month and $6.40 per month, respectively, and offer specs similar to those of their Linux-based counterparts.

These are fine shared hosting plans, but HostGator beats Arvixe to continue its reign as the Editors' Choice for shared web hosting. Although both services offer the choice of Linux- or Windows-based hosting, and unlimited domains, email, storage, and monthly data transfers, HostGator tosses in a free toll-free phone number and a private secure socket layer (SSL certificate). Arvixe used to offer free shared hosting SSL certificates, too, but they now cost $25 per year.

VPS Web Hosting

If you're in need of a web hosting setup that's more powerful than shared web hosting, but far less expensive than dedicated web hosting, Arvixe has attractive VPS packages starting at $43 per month. Regardless of the tier you select—there are six in total—you enjoy unlimited email, domains, and monthly data transfers. That freedom is important if you envision your company growing over time. Arvixe's Linux VPS selections top out at 3GB of RAM and 100GB of storage, while the Windows VPS plans max out 4GB of RAM and 100GB of storage. If you plan to build (or migrate) a site built on an ASP.NET framework, you'll appreciate Arvixe's Windows-based VPS packages.

That said, Hostwinds tops Arvixe to take the crown as our Editors' Choice for VPS hosting, offering up to 28.5GB of RAM and 600GB of disk space.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Arvixe's dedicated servers start at $108 per month for a cloud-based server, or $131 per month for a traditional hard drive-based server. Arvixe's options are more wallet-friendly than the dedicated servers of Media Temple, which start at a pricey $2,000 per month.

Arvixe lets you configure its Linux- or Windows-based cloud servers with up to 8GB of RAM, 300GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers. The traditional servers can be outfitted with up to 32GB of RAM, 1TB of HDD storage (or 512GB of solid-state storage), and unlimited monthly data transfers.

Arvixe's robust dedicated server offerings are good, but Hostwinds takes the crown as the category's Editors' Choice. Hostwinds's dedicated hosting packages (starting at $99) can be outfitted with up to 3TB of storage, 128GB of RAM, and boasts unlimited monthly data transfers. Hostwinds gives you a choice of Linux- or Windows-based operating systems, too.

Cloud Hosting

Traditionally, in non-cloud hosting, your site taps a single server's CPU, RAM, storage, and data transfers. But with cloud hosting, resources are pulled from multiple servers. Arvixe offers three dedicated cloud hosting plans—Basic, Pro, and Premium—that come in Linux and Windows varieties.

Basic (starting at $111 per month) includes an eight-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, 150GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers and email. Pro (starting at $132 per month) ups the RAM to 6GB and storage to 6GB, while the CPU cores increase to 12. The Premium tier (starting at $152 per month) builds on Pro with 16 CPU cores, 8GB of RAM, and 300GB of storage. Those plans sound powerful, but Arvixe doesn't take the category's Editors' Choice crown. The specs it offers just can't make up for slow page-load times and lack of phone support (both of which I'll detail below).

Instead, I recommend checking out the Editors' Choice, DreamHost's, if you want all-around excellent cloud hosting. It has packages that start at $4.50 per month (for 512MB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers) and top out at $48 per month (for four CPU cores, 8GB of RAM, 100GB of storage, and unlimited monthly data transfers). DreamHost doesn't offer specs that quite as high end as Arvixe's, but it's far more dependable.

WordPress Web Hosting

Arvixe also offers WordPress hosting (starting at $7 per month, or $4 per month with a two-year commitment) in the form of preinstalled managed WordPress hosting that gives your installation the white-glove treatment. Arvixe keeps the WordPress software up to date, automatically backs up data, updates plug-ins, and offers security measures to ward off hackers and malware.

Unlike WP Engine, Arvixe offers managed WordPress hosting that comes with unlimited storage and monthly data transfers, so you don't have to worry about hitting a cap. That said, Arvixe has a limitation of its own—you can only use it to host a maximum of six WordPress domains.

By comparison, TMDHosting offers excellent WordPress hosting tiers that let you host an unlimited number of websites. In addition, its prebuilt environment comes with many WordPress-friendly features, including live malware protection and curated plug-ins that are designed to enhance your experience. As a result, TMDHosting is the new Editors' Choice for WordPress web hosting. For more on the fantastically popular content management system, you should read How to Get Started With WordPress.

Reseller Web Hosting

If you're looking to get into the web hosting business, but don't want to deal with infrastructure matters, check out Arvixe's reseller hosting packages. The plans, starting at $23 per month, boast unlimited email and cPanel decks across the board. They also offer up to 200GB of storage and 2000GB of monthly data transfers. Unfortunately, Arvixe only offers shared reseller hosting packages. If you want dedicated or VPS reseller plans, check out Hostwinds, the category's Editors' Choice.

On the upside, Arvixe's reseller offerings bless you with a free domain and SSL certificate. Arvixe also lets you apply your own branding to the servers you rent, and it provides 24/7 tech support.

Building a Site

RVSiteBuilder, a website builder included with Arvixe's hosting packages, is what I used to build an Arvixe test site. RVSiteBuilder prompted me to key in my site's name, an optional slogan, and essential page categories (such as About Us, Contact, Home, and so on). After saving my selections, I clicked the Edit icon to begin shaping my site.

RVSitebuilder offers more site-construction options than 1&1's WebsiteBuilder, but it isn't overwhelming. I found it easy to drag and drop text, add images, and change the template and color scheme. RVSiteBuilder lets you add your own code to the prefabricated elements, which opens the door to a more custom look. Arvixe's Softaculous library has dozens of apps that can be used to improve your website, including ClipBucket and Podcast Generator.

E-Marketing and E-Commerce

Arvixe's aforementioned Softaculous software library also has email marketing tools, such as OpenNewsletter, an app that lets you send mail-based newsletters to a subscribers list. Softaculous also contains Magento (an online shopping cart app), which let me create an attractive store in just a few minutes by dragging and dropping website elements.

Magento gives Arvixe more flexibility than 1&1's Online Store in terms of colors and design options, but with that flexibility comes an extra layer of complexity that will demand more of your time.

Security Features

All Arvixe web hosting packages come with security features. Even with the most basic Arvixe plan, you can rest easy knowing that nightly security updates, brute force detection, firewalls, and anti-DDoS tools are in place.

Arvixe also offers SSL, a secure connection between your e-commerce page and a visitor's web browser, for $25 per year (you must also pay $2 per month for a required dedicated IP address). BusinessClass, VPSClass, DedicatedClass, and reseller packages come with one free SSL certificate (and a dedicated IP address).

Excellent Uptime, Questionable Page Loading Time

Website uptime is one of the most important aspects of a hosting service. While your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services—and they might not come back. We take web host uptime very seriously.

For this testing, I use a website monitoring tool to track my test sites' uptime. Every 15 minutes, the tool pings each website and sends me an email if it is unable to contact the site for longer than one minute. I look at the data for the most recent 14 days for each site's review. In my latest tests, Arvixe proved incredibly stable. Arvixe didn't go down once during a two-week timespan. You can count on Arvixe to deliver rock-solid uptime.

Unfortunately, my installation's pages sometimes took a very long time to load, which proved quite frustrating. While our review and rating of Arvixe is based on our own experiences, note that we have seen many Arvixe users making the same complaints.

Decent Customer Service, But You Can Do Better

Unfortunately, Arvixe still doesn't offer telephone support, which is a big letdown. Sometimes, you just want to speak with a human being to explain your website problems. That said, the company does offer excellent 24/7 web chat. I signed into the chat on a weekday afternoon, and the person I chatted with quickly answered my questions regarding the company's various hosting plans. Arvixe offers a solid 60-day money-back guarantee that bests many web hosts' 30-day money-back guarantees, but it isn't as lengthy as DreamHost's generous 97-day money-back guarantee.

Arvixe boasts plenty of Windows-based sever options, as well as impressive uptime in our testing, but it's not at the level of our top choices for web hosting, Dreamhost, HostGator, and Hostwinds. The once-great web host has some issues to sort out if it wants to reclaim its place at the top.

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About the Author

For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.

When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out Web hosting, music, utilities, and video game copy, Jeffrey mentors, practices Jeet Kune Do, blogs, podcasts, and speaks at the occasional con. He also collects vinyl and greatly enjoys a craft brew.